


Let's Negotiate

by dovingbird



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Consensual use of the slur 'slut', Dom/sub, M/M, scene negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 15:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8850607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovingbird/pseuds/dovingbird
Summary: A filled commission. Burnie has some misconceptions about what it means to dominate someone. Joel's the last person he expects to teach him otherwise.





	

“So let me get this straight,” Burnie says. “What I’m hearing is that you want me to take control of you.”  
  
“That is...” Joel nods slowly. “Yeah, that is, yeah.”  
  
“And what exactly does that mean?” Burnie asks.  
  
The Rooster Teeth office is probably a bad place to discuss this. There’s ears everywhere, hundreds of people who could just walk in on a conference room like this, countless cameras and microphones that could pick up a stray comment that could be missed in an editing process, all of that. But at the same time, it’s also the only place where Burnie can trust himself to have this conversation without getting his hands all over Joel.  
  
Work is pretty safe from messing around. There’s policy, of course, rulebooks, things that Burnie and Matt pored over and discussed with a lawyer before instituting them in the earliest days of the company, and that means that even people like Burnie and Joel, who’ve been playing this friends-with-benefits game for over twenty years now ever since they made that movie with Matt, even _they_ are not exempt, not even now that things are...well, starting to gain more traction in their, fuck, what even is this now, their _relationship._  
  
And that’s why they’re here, tucked in a less-used conference room, studying each other across the long table, because Burnie is weak to Joel’s eyes and Joel is weak to Burnie’s hands, and if they tried to discuss this literally anywhere else, especially with the sudden tension between them recently, they’d be seconds away from a bed or the back of a car or an unused closet. And hey, Burnie might be proactive and focused on advancement in every aspect of his life, but he also believes in having enough meetings and briefings that everybody knows what they’re getting into before they begin something.  
  
Something like a game of dominance, apparently.  
  
Joel looks far too distracting in his loose t-shirt, his hoodie shed and draped over the back of his chair from how fucking hot they keep these damn rooms during the winter. The t-shirt gapes open just slightly, just enough for Burnie to see the shape of Joel’s collarbone, the thickness of his neck leading down into it, into his broad shoulders. It’s a fight to keep his eyes on Joel’s face. And normally Joel would glance away every time their eyes met.  
  
Not today. Today Joel holds Burnie’s eyes without shifting. His hands might be fidgeting with the pen he has, but he looks much less shifty than usual, and that’s more intriguing than it should be.  
  
“Well, I mean, it’s, it’s exactly what it says on the tin,” Joel finally says with that dazzling smile of his, dimples free and on display. “You, Burnie, you dominance.” He points with the pen, then pokes himself in the chest. “Me submission. Like, i-it’s pretty clear, I think.”  
  
“Except not all of us are little sluts like you,” Burnie teases, “and maybe we don’t have experience playing with that kind of shit.”  
  
Joel’s cheeks immediately take on color, and he stammers for a second before he gets a hold on it. “Listen.” Joel leans forward, tenting his hands on the table. “While I, yes, that’s true, yeah, that’s, it’s not just about. About me being a slut.”  
  
Burnie holds up his open hand, conceding. “Fair enough. My mistake.” They both know Joel’s proclivities, how he’ll bend over for Burnie or Matt or Geoff or Gus or Jack or, or hell, half the office really, without any hesitation. Burnie doesn’t feel bad about teasing him even in the slightest. “So what’s it about? Me holding you down? Me wrecking you? What?” he asks, eyes dead set on Joel’s, not moving an inch. He likes doing this. Likes making Joel start flushing, fidgeting, until Joel finally looks away from him in silent concession. It’ll happen. He knows it will.  
  
Joel tilts his head to the side, supporting his cheek on his hand. “Well, really, i-it’s about me.”  
  
“Oh?” Burnie quirks a brow and laughs. “Oh, is that so?”  
  
“Yeah.” Joel quirks a brow right back.  
  
“You want me to be in control,” Burnie teases, “but really it’s you who’s in control, is that what you’re saying?”  
  
“Yeah, that’s it exactly.”  
  
Burnie studies Joel’s face, looking for the joke that Joel’s not telling him, but he can’t find it. Joel’s not dimpling, not trying to hide a smile, any of it. He’s just watching Burnie right back. “...wait, you’re serious, are you?”  
  
Joel nods.  
  
“Oh.” Burnie sits back in his seat and wrinkles his brow. His brain kicks into overdrive, trying to solve this. “Well, that’s uh...” Burnie is a problem solver. He likes figuring things out right away. He likes being three steps of everybody else, already surveying the future, already implementing plans that will get them where he wants them to be. He can taste the bitter frustration on the back of his tongue when no answers are immediately forthcoming. “Okay, I think we need to back up and go over this again.”  
  
Joel chuckles, then begins gesturing freely with his pen as he talks. “Dominance a-and submission, it’s, it’s not about whoever’s domming being in complete control, all right? That’s too, that’s too simple, a lot of mistakes can get made that way, it’s dangerous. No, it’s, the sub’s the one really in control of everything, okay?” Joel watches Burnie in silence for long enough that Burnie looks down, starts scribbling bullet point notes in his little notepad. “Every, every scene that happens, it’s about what the sub wants. Does the sub wanna be, be restrained? Does the sub wanna be humiliated? Does, like, does the sub wanna be hurt? That’s what it’s a-about at the core of it.”  
  
“At the core of it,” Burnie very quietly repeats as he writes, because it’s easier to summarize Joel’s words neatly than to focus on the way Burnie’s brain is tilting this way and that and looking for purchase.  
  
“Now, the dom...” Joel gestures to Burnie again, this time with one of his large, open hands. “The dom can choose how to play out those desires, of course. If the sub wants to be restrained, the, the dom can, they can choose to use their hands, o-or rope, or scarves, or, or maybe a full body restraint, but that’s, they still need to be aware of their sub’s, of their temperament and wants, like, like maybe the sub wants to be restrained _and_ humiliated, and that means that it, it’ll be better to tie them up so they’re _exposed_ and can’t hide themselves. I-it’s a different game then.”  
  
“Okay,” Burnie says slowly. He’s fallen behind on notetaking, tries to make a little chart connecting restraint and humiliation, but it’s not working very well. His pen is bleeding into the paper and making a huge mess. Why the fuck did he use gel pens?  
  
“You with me, Burns?”  
  
“Yeah, of course,” Burnie says. He realizes he’s fidgeting with the pen, realizes that Joel’s watching him fidget with the pen, and he smacks it down on the paper and holds it still. “Okay, no, I have a lot of questions, Jesus.”  
  
Joel sits back in his chair, tucking his arms behind his neck. “That’s, yeah, that’s okay, tell me.”  
  
It’s Burnie’s turn to flush under his beard, and he’s thankful that maybe Joel won’t be able to see it. “I mean...how, uh, how will I know what you want?”  
  
Joel’s eyes sparkle as he grins. “Well, y’know, you ask me, for one.”  
  
“Oh.” Burnie’s eyes widen a little.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I-I just...” Burnie clamps his mouth shut and swallows so he can get back on track without stammering. “It’s like...it always looks like they don’t ask, they just know.”  
  
“Who’s ‘they?’” Joel asks.  
  
“You know, they, them, in uh, in like movies and stuff, I don’t know.”  
  
“That’s movies, though,” Joel says. “I-I mean, that’s, Burnie, we’ve been in the industry for long enough, you know that bad movies get made with, with bad scripts that a-aren’t researched all that well.”  
  
“Yeah, no, I know that, of course,” Burnie says quickly, flicking his pen away with a huff. “That’s obvious.”  
  
“Okay.” Joel smiles again. “Anyway, that’s, I mean...after you play with, with someone for a while, you can start reading them better a-and know what they want, but it’s still good to ask, you know? Things change sometimes.”  
  
“Yeah,” Burnie says, looking up at him. “Yeah, things change.”  
  
Joel studies Burnie with that soft smile of his, eyes dancing over Burnie’s face, and Burnie wonders not for the first time what Joel sees. Joel doesn’t fucking age, he’s as beautiful as he was the day that Burnie met him, and Burnie’s thick and a little chubby and his body hurts now and he’s getting old, but Joel still looks at him like, like _that._ It’s out of this world.  
  
There’s a million more questions that Burnie has, but sitting here, having Joel look at him like that, like Burnie owns the world and can do no wrong, it makes Burnie let out a sharp exhale. “I-I don’t know if I can do it,” Burnie says.  
  
Joel’s eyebrows lift and he leans forward again. “Do what?”  
  
“The dominance thing, it’s...I mean, I’ve never done anything like that before.”  
  
“I mean, there was, y’know, a time where I-I never did anything submissive before,” Joel says slowly. “But I tried it. I-I think you’d like it.”  
  
“I would,” Burnie says effusively before Joel can look too disappointed. “I really would. It sounds incredible. It sounds right up my alley. But if I fuck it up, I could hurt you, and I just...”  
  
“No, yeah, I understand,” Joel says. He clears his throat. “That’s...I mean, we can-”  
  
“We can do an example,” Burnie says.  
  
Joel perks up. “Yeah, exactly! Like, just do a-a really soft, slow scene where I tell you everything I want, and-”  
  
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Burnie shakes his head. “I meant that, like, that you, you show me. How it works.”  
  
Joel stares at Burnie, recognition flicking over his expression for a few moments before he tilts his head to the side, hands tented in front of his mouth. “...like...like I dominate you?”  
  
“Yeah,” Burnie says.  
  
It’s like a switch gets flipped. Joel’s sparkling eyes turn sharp around the edges like the blade of a knife and his mouth drops open in consideration and his brows knit. And then everything ease back a little, into warm eyes that threaten to burn Burnie with their intensity and lightly bitten lips and slowly cresting brows. “Would you like it if I did that, Burns?” Joel asks softly, the first smooth thing he’s said the entire time they’ve been discussing.  
  
Burnie has no idea why just that one little sentence threatens to get him hard.  
  
Burnie swallows the sudden knot in his throat down and reaches to pop the top button of his shirt as he clears his throat, flushed and a little overheated. “I just...I-I think it’d be a good way for me to, uh, to learn how you’d want me to do things, if that makes sense?”  
  
Joel’s eyes slowly run down what he can see of Burnie’s body, from curls to his stomach.  
  
“And, uh, that’s just, if you tell me mistakes that rookie doms make too, then I can avoid making them, and, uh...”  
  
Joel sucks on his own bottom lip as he meets Burnie’s eyes again, burning into them.  
  
“It just...it’d be...a good idea,” Burnie ends with, feeling observed and small and warm all over.  
  
There’s a long moment of silence paired with Joel tracing the curve of his own bottom lip with his thumb before he speaks. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, I, I think that’d be a really good idea.”  
  
Burnie nods carefully. He can’t look away from Joel, not when he feels this hypnotized. “When?”  
  
“Tonight?” Joel asks. “My place?”  
  
“Yeah,” Burnie says. “Is, uh, like, maybe around 7 o’clock?”  
  
Joel considers, then flips his notepad closed. “Make it eight,” he says as he stands up. “I’ll need to prepare.”  
  
Burnie stays seated as Joel packs up, eyes pinned to him, and when Joel finishes getting his things together he glances up again. He traces his finger slowly over the back of Burnie’s forearm, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake. And then he winks at him with a grin and leaves the conference room.  
  
It takes Burnie a very long time to realize that he was waiting to be dismissed. Fuck.


End file.
